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Michigan State shutters Healing Assistance Fund for survivors of abuse by Larry Nassar

Larry Nassar survivors and their parents erupted in calls for the Michigan State board to fire John Engler. “Shame on you,” mother Leslie Miller said.
Lansing State Journal

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A handful of protesters hold up signage directed at the MSU Board of Trustees, Friday, Oct. 26 2018, during the Board of Trustees meeting at the Hannah Administration Building on the campus of MSU. The one on the left reads "Believe Survivors."(Photo: Matthew Dae Smith/Lansing State Journal)Buy Photo

EAST LANSING - Michigan State University won't reopen the Healing Assistance Fund it set up for survivors of sexual abuse perpetrated by Larry Nassar, which was frozen in July amid concerns of fraud.

MSU spokesperson Emily Guerrant said the $10 million fund was intended to be "a bridge" to allow survivors financial support to get counseling until the settlement was reached.

And, with the Tuesday payment of $425 million in settlement money to the Qualified Survivor Fund bound for 333 survivors, the fund will be closed, though claims made prior to its freezing will be honored, Guerrant said.

Closing the fund early, interim MSU President John Engler wrote in a memo to trustees, "permits us to use the $8.6 million remaining balance in the Healing Fund to reduce the amount of our borrowing to pay the settlement."

Trinea Gonczar, who gave a victim impact statement at Nassar's sentencing hearing in January, said that the Healing Fund "has absolutely nothing to do" with the settlement. She believes the fund was set up as a public relations stunt rather than as a genuine effort to support survivors.

"Many survivors have nothing to do with the settlement," she said, adding that those slated for a settlement payment still don't know for certain when they'll receive it.

The decision to close down the fund runs counter to recommendations made by MSU's Relationship Violence and Sexual Misconduct Expert Advisory Workgroup, according to the group's chair, Rebecca Campbell.

Asked by members of Engler's administration what should be done, Cambell said, the workgroup advised that the fund should remain open and should have been reopened as quickly as possible.

"Our understanding was that the option to reopen was still on the table," she said. She learned of the decision to shutter the fund through a story in the The State News that included a document from the workgroup entitled, "Summary of Research on Trauma and Treatment for Sexual Assault Survivors."

That summary concluded: "If sexual assault survivors have entered into treatment based on the understanding that there were dedicated funds available to cover the cost of therapy, and then learn that they are no longer eligible for those funds, they are likely to feel that such changes are a gross violation of trust. This betrayal will likely cause significant distress that will compound trauma symptoms they are already experiencing."

In October, Engler said nearly half of the $1,159,106 paid out by the fund went to individuals trying to defraud the university.

“We established this fund to express our concern for and commitment to these brave young women,” Board Chair Brian Breslin said in a statement following the board's request to create a fund. “We are deeply saddened by the stories of abuse and grateful for the courage the victims showed in coming forward.”

In a statement Tuesday, Breslin said, in part, "Now that the university has fulfilled its commitment and deposited the settlement funds, we support redirecting the remaining Healing Assistance Fund toward the $500 million lawsuit settlement."

"We hope survivors who need counseling support continue to seek out appropriate services including the several options available on campus,” he added.

The Healing Assistance Fund was not limited to women who have sued the university but was available to MSU Health Clinic patients and student-athletes whom Nassar abused as well as their parents. The settlement payments are bound for those 332 people that sued MSU.

Guerrant acknowledged that those women who aren't part of the settlement won't be entitled to financial support previously made available with the fund.

When the fund was opened, Louise Harder, who saw Nassar at the MSU clinic from 2008 to 2010, said she received a little more than $100,000 in reimbursement for various medical appointments between 2010 and 2018.

She heard the fund had been frozen through the media. She has more than $1,000 in pending reimbursements.

Her providers have been accommodating, she said, but she's cut the frequency of her appointments as a result of the freeze.

"I’m just so utterly upset and disappointed," she said. "It was the one thing they were kind of doing right in a sense for us survivors.